In the drilling and completion industry it is known that operations affecting an earth formation including operations such as fracturing, or “fracing”, operations can be beneficial for a number of reasons. In some cases, for example, fracturing operations help to stimulate the production of hydrocarbons from earth formations. In such operations, portions of the formation are fractured to increase fluid flow from the formation into a borehole. Fracturing generally includes isolating a portion of the borehole and injecting fluid to cause fractures in the formation, and thereby improve production capacity.
In addition to full-scale fracturing operations, smaller scale fluid injection operations can be performed to estimate formation properties. For example, micro-fracturing tests are performed to measure formation breakdown pressure, fracture closure pressure and stress characteristics of a formation. Such tests are useful in obtaining information about a formation, and can also be useful in planning subsequent fracturing or other stimulation operations.